In Tanzania, the sea is moving inland - and taking livelihoods with it

Along the coast of Tanzania, in East Africa, the Indian Ocean is pushing saltwater ever farther inland, shrinking coconut harvests, driving fish away and leaving some residents wondering how much longer they can stay.

Buga Steven can measure the advance of the sea in coconuts.

There was a time when his trees yielded about 5,000 of them. Today, he said, a harvest brings less than a third of that.

“And they are much smaller than before,” said the Tanzanian farmer, who lives in Pangani, on the country’s northeastern coast, where the local river meets the Indian Ocean.

There, seawater has pushed about eight kilometres inland along the Pangani river , according to the United Nations Environment Programme ( UNEP ), carrying salt into fields that once sustained farmers along its banks.

In places, mangroves are following the saltwater inland.